no birds sing
by MegaBadBunny
Summary: an epilogue to "la belle dame sans merci". (both titles derived from the keats poem of the same name.)


A gasp tears out between his teeth and his heart thunders frantically in his throat, hammer-hammer-hammering in time to the shrill squeal of monitors screaming all around him.

"Oh my god, he's awake!" he hears someone cry out, and the voice is familiar, but he can't place it, can't picture the face forming the words, can't feel the meaning behind them, he can't—

His eyes fly open to find Jackie Tyler staring down at him.

Jackie positively beams, a grin splitting her face ear-to-ear while a tear trickles its way down her cheek. "Well, it's about time, you daft wanker!"

The Doctor blinks bright hospital lights out of his eyes (except they're not bright at all, they're dim and comfortable, but opening his eyes fucking _hurts_) and he opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out but a dull wheeze.

"Right," says Jackie, and she scurries into the shadows of his periphery. He can't see her, and he hasn't got the energy to follow her with either his head or his gaze, so he listens instead to the telltale sounds of something clinking (hollow, non-crystalline, glass) followed by a hiss and a slosh (grinding, compression, a faucet, water), all of it just barely audible over the quieting beeps and chimes of the hospital equipment around him. A cup full of water enters his field of vision, a well-manicured and many-ringed fist wrapped tightly around it, and he reaches out with a weak and trembling hand. Fortunately, Jackie keeps her hold on the cup, allowing him to guide it to his lips at his leisure, and only a little bit dribbles down his chin.

"There you go, love," says Jackie, her voice softening into something smooth, as gentle as the Doctor has ever heard it directed at him; it's the same voice she uses for Tony when he's sick or hurt. "Been a little while since you had a proper drink, yeah? You're probably parched, poor thing. And famished, too, I'd wager."

Gulping down the last of the water, the Doctor tries to speak again, with every intention of saying _thank you_, followed by the query of how long he's been unconscious, but something else comes out instead.

"Rose?" he gasps.

Jackie's smile tightens. "Yeah. She's here. But, Doctor—"

The creak of the opening door cuts off her words; as if on cue, Rose slips into the room. Silhouetted by the light in the hall, her expression is unreadable, but that doesn't mean the Doctor's doesn't try anyway, his eyes traveling over everything from her hair (a mess) to her shoulders (slumped) to her hands (tense, balled into fists) to her trousers (wrinkled) and everything in-between.

Relief and his heartrate rise in equal measure, spoken into sound by the surrounding monitors chiming erratically around him. God, she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

"Why don't I just let you two get to it?" asks Jackie, and she leaves without waiting for an answer.

Rose fidgets in the doorway. The Doctor waits patiently for a moment, but after it becomes apparent that she is not, in fact, going to throw herself into his arms—not that he expected that or anything, not that he secretly hoped for it, certainly not—he pats the empty spot of mattress next to him, the motion weary and faint.

Eyes flickering nervously (and the Doctor wonders at that, what on earth she would have to be nervous about), Rose draws near. "Hey," she says, her voice quiet as she approaches the Doctor. "Long time, no see."

Mutely, the Doctor nods. Probably he can speak now, but he doesn't dare; he isn't certain he could summon forth anything but a cracking sob. The fact that his brain didn't trick him after all, that she's real and she's here and she stayed, with him, suffuses him with a sort of desperate gladness that he didn't even know was possible.

Rose sits gingerly on the bed and he just watches her, wonders why she can't seem to look him in the eye. But maybe she's just exhausted—he doesn't know how long he's been out, after all, or when he was stung, or how long she's had to worry over him.

"So, erm—" Rose tries to say, but the Doctor has already rallied all of his strength to sit up and pull her into a bruising kiss.

With a jolt, Rose stiffens, but the Doctor just clings harder, grasping her by the upper arm until he's sure he'll leave marks behind as his other hand tangles in her hair. _I'm so glad you're here_, he wants to tell her, and he thinks maybe he can will her to understand with his lips brushing hers; maybe she'll hear it in their shared breath. _I'm so glad you're with me, I missed you, I love you—_

With a gasp, Rose yanks herself out of his grap, backing away into the wall behind her. Her hand flies up to her mouth and she watches him with eyes wide as saucer plates.

For a moment, the Doctor just stares, bewildered (and, if he's being honest, just a little hurt), but then he laughs. "Sorry," he rasps, raking both hands through his sleep-matted hair. "My breath is probably atrocious, isn't it?"

Rose blinks. "What?"

"Well, I've been out for at least a few days, haven't I?" asks the Doctor. Exploring the landscape of stubble on his cheekbones with tentative fingertips, he winces. "Or longer—a week, maybe close to two. Blimey. Anyway, you don't have much of a chance to brush your teeth in a Morpheus coma, do you? So that was probably a nasty surprise just now, probably a bit like getting snogged by a Varuvian swamp-monster."

"Why did you kiss me?"

The Doctor laughs, a little louder this time. "That's a good one, tell me another."

When Rose doesn't reply, just staring at him in utter confusion, the Doctor's confidence begins to falter, his smile slipping.

"Why wouldn't I kiss you?" he asks.

Rose wraps her arms around her ribs, closing in on herself. Protecting herself. "You never have before."

"Of course I have, don't be silly," the Doctor says, and he laughs again, but the sound is weaker this time, thinner. "Loads of times, Rose—is something wrong with your memory? Were you stung as well—were you exposed to the Morpheus toxin?"

"No. There's nothing wrong with my memory. And I wasn't here for the Morpheus incident—I only read about it in the report."

(A flash of pain at the base of his neck, burning between his atlas and axis vertebrae, and he remembers the bite of the sting and the burning after, and he remembers that Rose was there and bandaged his wound, and—)

"No," says the Doctor, slowly. "You were there. I know you were. I remember…"

(He remembers hurt, but she was there to help—wasn't she?)

"I wasn't," Rose says, and she sounds impossibly far away, now. "Doctor, we haven't seen each other in ages. Not since I left y—not since that second time on Bad Wolf Bay."

Her words hang in the air long after she says them, and the Doctor's smile leaves his face like it was never there.

Blood drains from his head in a deafening pump-pump-pump that rushes in his ears and drowns out everything else, even the screeching cacophony of the alarms. He clutches the edge of the mattress for support as the room tilts, blurring his vision, closing in, pressing on his chest, tightening around his throat—

"—breathe, Doctor, please!" he hears, or thinks he hears filtering in amongst the rest of the clatter, and thinks he feels the pressure of a familiar hand on his chest, on his cheek, but he can't move, can't breathe, can't think—

(She's not there, she was never there, there were no kisses, no whispered confessions, no lazy afternoons or too-late nights, no silly movies or ignored phone calls or held hands or stolen glances or too-tight embraces no missions no fights no shared flats no shared beds no them no _her _no no no _no no no please_)

The next thing he knows, the room around him is full, crowded to the corners with physicians and nurses checking monitors and taking notes and taking his pulse and asking dozens or maybe hundreds of questions. Lights shine in his eyes and fingers press against his wrist and the cold press of a stethoscope chills his chest and a needle pinches the inside of his arm, the soft fleshy bit inside his elbow (his antecubital fossa, he thinks dully) and for once, thank god for Jackie because she's back in the room, answering everything for him, her hand wrapped tightly around his. Before long he feels himself drifting, the tether of his consciousness snapped and released and floating away into a deep, black darkness.

(He can't make out the words, but he can hear the concern in Jackie's voice; she squeezes his hand in assurance and he thinks he should squeeze back, but all he can do is wonder why it isn't Rose holding his hand before the curtains fall and the dark claims him again.)

* * *

"…you sure, though?"

"Positive. It was the first thing that came out of his mouth."

The monitors aren't nearly so loud, this time; now, they're quiet enough that the Doctor can easily hear the sounds of whispering out in the corridor, swimming in through his muddled senses.

"I don't know," says Rose's voice. "Maybe I shouldn't have come back."

"Now that's bollocks and you know it," Jackie replies.

"The way he looked at me—he's never gonna forgive me, Mum."

"Have you tried asking?"

"That's just gonna make things worse."

He can practically hear the sound of Jackie's jaw setting. "Don't know if that's possible, sweetheart."

A sigh. "Oh, god. Not right now. Please—"

"I'm just saying, he's not the only one who needs—"

"Can we at least talk about this outside? He's gonna wake up again."

"Let him. I'd wager he's had enough sleep for a while."

Jackie isn't wrong, but the Doctor can still feel sleep tugging at him, pulling insistently at his bones. He struggles to open his eyes, fights to keep them from closing again.

"Mum, I don't know what to do," Rose admits quietly.

At least they've got that in common, the Doctor thinks as he slides back into unconsciousness.

* * *

Hours later, and he awakes just long enough to see Rose napping on the couch next to his bed.

(She'll be gone in the morning; he'll think he could have imagined her presence if it wasn't for the bare traces of her scent lingering on the air.)

* * *

"So," Rose says hesitantly the next day, when everyone else has finally (blessedly) left and it's just the two of them in his dim little room. "How much do you remember?"

His head falls back on the pillow (a short journey, fortunately, since one of the nurses kindly propped him up; his muscles will recover quickly enough, a side effect of whatever remains of his Time Lord brain chemistry, but they still haven't moved to speak of for nearly three hundred hours, and they're bloody _tired_) and his voice stays silent. He doesn't want to answer. Doesn't want to know what other questions his replies will inspire, what other questions and answers will follow, what kind of wearied vicious cycle will eat and regurgitate itself as a result.

"Do you recall anything that happened after we got back from the other universe?"

Of course he does; he recalls late mornings, missions on rooftops, shots downed for courage, the rhythmic pump-pump-pump of the bass in a crowded tiny pub. He recalls that she was there for each of those things, and that she wasn't, that it's all a muddy collection of false memories and half-dreams and things-that-could-have-been, but-weren't. He knows that it feels like she was with him, but she wasn't.

He closes his eyes. Maybe he can just tell Rose he hasn't got the energy for this interrogation session. It would be honest enough.

(_"Aren't you tired?" she asks upon awakening in his bed—_except she never did, did she?)

"Are you very angry with me?"

At that he opens his eyes so he can look at her, read the emotion flitting across her face as she steels herself for his response. She looks worn, almost as wan as he feels, and that's saying something.

He doesn't know if he can bring himself to be honest with her.

"Why did you come back?" he asks instead.

Glancing down at her hands, Rose avoids his gaze, watching her empty fingers curl and unfurl. "There were all these cracks in the walls between universes. Reality sort of split again—something to do with the TARDIS, but it's all sorted now. I used my dimension-hopper to get through one of the holes left behind."

The Doctor waits patiently. "Why?" he asks again.

After a moment, Rose meets his gaze. "He heard you," she tells him. "The Doctor—the other Doctor. He said when all the cracks started opening up, he could hear you across the Void."

"I never sent any kind of message," the Doctor says, frowning. "I know that much."

"It wasn't like that—he could hear your thoughts. Or your dreams, more like. Like a telepathic connection."

"What did he hear?"

"He said you were in trouble. Said you were poisoned, trapped in some sort of dream-world. And…"

She swallows. "He said you were calling out my name. Calling for me."

Something sharp sticks in the Doctor's chest and now it's his turn to look away. "Ah," he says, his voice tight.

"What happened, Doctor? In the dream-world?"

He blinks, and a hundred memories pop behind his eyelids like fireworks—the smell of stew scalding on the stove, the feel of fingers entwining with his, the taste of her skin, damp and salty and sweet.

Fighting to keep his emotions at bay, to push them down and away so his lungs don't fill and drown with them, he forces his mouth into the shape of a tight smile. "Sorry about that. As I suspected, Morpheus toxins and telepathy don't mix. I'll try to keep my nightmares quieter, next time."

"Nightmares? I thought the toxin made people happy, gave them happy dreams."

"No."

Rose falls silent. The air between them is heavy, palpable, swollen with potential words like a raincloud before a storm.

"Doctor," Rose starts to say, just as the Doctor says, wearily, "I think I'd like a rest, now."

She looks like she might keep talking anyway, and some part of him wants her to; some part of him wants her to argue, to crinkle her brow and jut out her lower lip and stamp her foot and stand her ground and give him what-for, like she would have done before, in his dreams and back in the other universe. He doesn't know how to interact with this quiet, almost-shy Rose, who nods silently and goes to the door without so much as a peep or a glance back.

(He wishes she would stay.)

* * *

Alone in his hospital bed, he thinks and he thinks and he thinks until his skull might split from it, but no matter how he tries, he can't recall those first few hours back in this universe. He remembers the zeppelin-ride from Norway (where he pulled her close and she snuggled against him even though the armrest dug into both of their ribcages, except she wasn't there, he just looked at the empty seat next to him and wished she was) and the paperwork he filed upon arriving in England (where she suggested he take the last name Noble, after Donna, and he was touched, except no one mentioned it to him, he thought of it himself) and Pete urging him to find something to do with his spare time (missions for Torchwood, made bearable and even enjoyable by her presence and the times she saved him and he rescued her, except he always went solo). He remembers all of it, up to getting stung in that hazard-zone of a warehouse, and he recalls, with perfect clarity, both versions of everything, both with and without the dreams of her scattered amongst it all. But he can't remember that second trip to Bad Wolf Bay, no matter how hard he tries.

(She said he didn't answer, in his dream. But she must have asked, and he must have replied; he's certain of that. He's less certain of what his reply may have been.)

"Not my problem."

"It most certainly _is_ your problem, Rose!"

Startling awake, the Doctor turns his head toward the sound of their voices. Probably they think they're far enough down the corridor that he can't hear them, but they're wrong.

A heavy sigh. "It's obvious he doesn't want me here, Mum."

"Now I know you don't believe that. He loves you, sweetheart. He _loves _you. Can't you see that?"

Silence. The Doctor realizes he's gripping the bedclothes tight enough to tear.

"You don't want to talk to me? Fine," says Jackie impatiently. "Talk to him, then."

The Doctor's stomach roils at the thought, bubbling queasily. If Rose replies, he doesn't hear it; the physical therapist has chosen this very moment to enter the room in a clatter of equipment and banging-open doors and cheerful chatter, wallpapering over any other noise. Silently, the Doctor curses the therapist for his terrible timing. (Later, he'll verbally curse the therapist for popping his back just-so in a flash of surprise hurt, even if it helps with the stiffness and pain. Which, it _does_ help, he will admit. Albeit rather grudgingly.)

* * *

The physicians and therapists are absolutely delighted (and equally flabbergasted) with the Doctor's progress. _Surprising_, they call it, as he recalls facts and figures with pristine clarity, even if one or two of said facts and figures hail from a universe and a lifetime away. _Unprecedented_, they say of his undiminished capability to problem-solve and compute complex equations in his head, no pencil or paper, ta. _Miraculous_, they label his ability to execute fine motor skills and walk with only the use of a cane, a mere 43 hours after awakening from his coma.

_A bloody nuisance_, the Doctor labels it all, and escapes from his attending team at the earliest available opportunity.

Oh, he doesn't leave the hospital grounds, of course, no matter how much he'd like to. They'd just send a bunch of _people_ after him and it would all be a lot of noise and effort and fuss once they caught up. Besides, as much as he doesn't like to think about it, he is still awfully tired.

(Not to mention, leaving the hospital means running away from Rose. Or at least it might look that way. Probably a very bad idea, no matter how tempting it may be.)

So the Doctor tries to outrun his thoughts instead, eluding their grasp via laps around the hospital grounds, half-walking, half-hobbling over paths and around trees and garden patches, and he stubbornly does _not_ think about their (his) garden back at their (his) cottage, overflowing with flowers and herbs and weeds and wild rabbits that nibble on everything in sight (except when he returns to the cottage, he won't find any rabbits, will he, because Rose never planted that little herb garden, because she never got bored one day and decided to half-take up botany for all of a single afternoon, because she was never there). Thus the Doctor's thoughts prove difficult to outrun, especially at this ungainly and lumbering pace. His energy surrenders far quicker than his torturous thoughts do, and that's how he finds himself plonked on a bench overlooking a waterfowl pond full of geese (_Alopochen aegyptiaca_ specifically, a gaggle of them, his brain provides helpfully). His muscles whine in faint protest as he sits, his lungs burning and heart thudding sluggishly in his chest. The physicians may all have deemed his recovery thus far as miraculous, but right now, it feels anything but.

He's been watching the geese on the water for thirty-six minutes and seventeen seconds when he hears her approach. (He is suddenly blisteringly grateful that Jackie brought him pyjamas and a dressing-gown to wear; they may be a little tartan for his tastes, a tad short in the ankles, but he doesn't much fancy the alternative of Rose seeing him in those unfortunate peekaboo hospital gowns.)

"Would have brought some bread, if I'd known you were here," Rose says softly, from somewhere close behind him. The Doctor considers telling her she needn't have bothered, the carbohydrates present in bread makes it a terrible snack for geese's digestive systems, and besides, the bread from the hospital cafeteria is so bland, even the least discerning of the geese would wrinkle their beaks at it, but he just ends up grunting a noncommittal _Mm_.

He can hear her fidgeting in the grass. "Would you rather I left you alone?"

_Yes,_ he thinks. _Absolutely not, _he also thinks. _Never again, please._

"Did my flock of dedicated physicians send you looking for me?" he asks instead. "Are you heading the search team?"

"No. It's just me. I asked them not to send anyone else after you."

The Doctor glances over his shoulder at her, questioning.

Rose shrugs. "Figured you wouldn't like it. People fussing over you."

"Ah," says the Doctor, nodding even though the movement hurts, likely due to that tight feeling of something twisting in his chest. She's right, of course-he doesn't want _people_ fussing over him so much as one person, singular, specific-but he still feels a little disappointed somehow, and worse, he feels stupid for feeling disappointed. "Yes, that would be dreadful, wouldn't it?" he asks casually, shifting back to watch the geese on the pond. "People fussing over me, caring about where I've gone, what I'm doing, how I'm feeling. Who on earth would want something like that?"

A pause, swollen with tension. "Is everything all right?" asks Rose. "Do you-do you want to talk?"

"Who, me? Oh goodness, no," replies the Doctor. "I'm just here to watch the geese."

Moments crawl by in silence, the quiet interrupted only by the splashing in the pond in front of them. At least the geese seem to be enjoying themselves, the Doctor thinks morosely. At least they've probably all got other geese that care for them, goose-friends and goose-lovers and fucking goose-soulmates that don't leave each other stranded on stupid beaches in stupid universes all so they can leap right into the arms of other geese just because they think this goose isn't anything better than a shabby goose-copy, a pale goose-facsimile of their former goose-self, when really, they're just as much of the same goose as they've ever been, right down to the feather patterns and the soft underbellies and the tendency to hiss when cornered.

His thoughts are interrupted by a soft bend in the bench beneath him as Rose sits down, painfully far away, it seems. She sighs. "Look, Doctor-"

"Well, that just about concludes my yard time," says the Doctor as he springs up from the bench, swaying on his feet only a little bit. He admonishes his body for its unforgivable weakness (surely in his old body, he would have felt better by now) and he refuses to let his head swim. "Time to head back to the plush confines of my cell, shall I? Can't have you returning to my keepers empty-handed."

He braces his cane against the ground to stop himself falling over. "All right, Lieutenant Tyler. Tell them I surrendered willingly."

"Maybe they'll let you off early for good behavior," Rose teases with a wan little smile.

"That would be nice for everyone, wouldn't it?" says the Doctor, hobbling a few halting steps around the bench. "Don't want to keep the other universe waiting, after all. That would be impolite."

"That's not what I meant," Rose says quietly.

"Of course it is. I'm certain you're eager to get back to the TARDIS and your life among the stars," the Doctor replies, and he wills himself not to pant with exertion as he walks away. "Who wouldn't be?"

He doesn't wait for a response, and Rose doesn't offer one, and she doesn't follow after him. He tells himself he doesn't care.

* * *

Maybe it's just as well Donna isn't actually here; she wouldn't tolerate this sort of brooding from him. As it turns out, neither does Jackie.

"Absolutely not," she says firmly, hands planted on her hips as she glares down at the Doctor in his wheelchair. "You are _not_ going back to that cottage all alone, where you could trip and fall and break your head and no one would know for hours. You're staying in the mansion, with us, until your physicians give you the all-clear."

"_I'm_ giving me the all-clear," the Doctor says impatiently. "I'm fine, Jackie."

"You're not. You still need care."

"And I'll take care of myself," says the Doctor, standing up from the wheelchair. Thankfully, he does not sway or waver this time, and he spreads his hands in illustration. "See?" he says, spinning round so he can walk backward over the curb. He sits himself down in Jackie's town car without even an ounce of (visible) struggle.

Jackie's gaze narrows. "Fine," she says. "But if you're going back to the cottage, you're going with Rose."

The Doctor's throat constricts painfully. "Am I?" he asks, forcing his voice to stay neutral. "I thought she'd be headed back by now."

"What makes you think that?"

He shrugs. "Stands to reason."

"What reason?"

"Just seems like there's nothing keeping her here, now."

"If you really think that, then you're a lot stupider than you look."

The Doctor shoots Jackie a withering glare. She does not, to his disappointment, wither beneath it.

"So if she's not going back now, then when is she going back?" the Doctor asks.

"God, you're both hopeless," Jackie mutters. "What on earth are you asking me for? Ask her. And ask her not to go back at all, while you're at it."

"Shall I beg, then?" the Doctor asks mildly.

Jackie scoffs. "'Scuse me, but did I say that? No. I didn't. I said you should talk to her."

"Talking didn't help before. Can't imagine it'll make a difference now."

To his surprise, Jackie bursts into laughter, shaking her head as she rests a hand on the open car door. "Oh, come off it. You don't really think that," she chuckles. "Not you, with that never-resting, never-ending gob of yours."

"Yes, well," says the Doctor, disgruntled. "Even I know words can't solve everything."

Rolling her eyes, Jackie only reminds him even more of Donna, now, if Donna were blonde and more prone to wearing diamonds and cashmere tracksuits. "You're full of it," she says as she shuts the car door on him.

He hates how right she is.

* * *

(_"I stood here. On the worst day of my life," she says, and the hurt on her face could cut him in half. "You still haven't finished that sentence."_

_It's not a question, but it demands an answer all the same. And it would be so easy to tell her, so easy to open his mouth and let the words tumble out from where they've been pressing behind his teeth, beneath his tongue, just hiding, just waiting-_)

He awakens to silence, as usual.

* * *

The sight of Rose in the cottage, just going about her day-to-day business as if nothing were out of the ordinary, unsettles him; it's an uncomfortable combination of nostalgia and regret and longing and resentment braiding into a tight, unbudging knot in the Doctor's gut. So it only make sense, really, to avoid her. Not in an intentional way, of course; certainly not in a traceable way. The Doctor just so happens to prefer his tea in the garden (even if the pollen of some miscreant plant makes him sneeze) and his exercise in the wee hours of the morning (even if that means he has to wake up at 5:30 am, because somehow Rose is a morning person, now) and his meals in his room (because who _doesn't_ enjoy crumbs in the duvet?). It all seems a very reasonable routine for the approximately thirty-seven hours that Rose puts up with it.

"Because you're not going to your physical therapy appointments, and I _know_ you're not following the itinerary on your own, and you won't unless someone makes you," says Rose, brandishing the packet provided by the Doctor's therapist. It outlines, in colorful and quite frankly obnoxious little illustrations, all the exercises he should be doing to fully regain and fine-tune those pesky minor things like strength and endurance and coordination. (The exercises he _should_ be doing, mind, not the exercises he _is_ doing.) Apparently, even if the physicians and therapists are impressed with the Doctor's recovery (because it is, in fact, impressive), they're all still determined to stick their noses in the Doctor's business.

The Doctor glances at the packet, unconvinced. "This mode of therapy is completely obsolete by the beginning of the next century, you know."

"Yeah, well, we live in _this _century."

"Do we?" asks the Doctor under his breath. "Didn't think _we_ did anything."

Head tilting, Rose watches him through narrowed eyes, wary and shrewd. "Sure we do. We can do loads of things. For example, _we _can do therapy, or _we _can talk. Which'll it be?"

The Doctor slaps on a tight grin as he swipes the packet from her hand. "Therapy, it is!"

* * *

"Can't help but notice that this isn't on your itinerary yet," says Rose, jogging alongside the Doctor down the sun-dappled road. "Pretty sure you're supposed to ease your way into running sometime in the future."

"Never had a problem with it before," says the Doctor, studiously ignoring the sweat trickling down his spine as he runs, forcing air in and out of his lungs. "It was good enough then and it should be good enough now."

"Yeah, but you're different now."

"You don't say," says the Doctor, panting through gritted teeth.

They pass a few moments in silence, and if it weren't for the tension mounting in the space between them, the Doctor might allow himself to enjoy being outside right now, with the cool, crisp morning air, the trees casting shadows over the road with a canopy of leaves. The sun twinkles cheekily at him through the tree-branches and amidst the gentle susurrous of crickets chirping cheerfully in the background, he can hear a stream joyfully bubbling and trickling, somewhere. It's lovely, all of it; there's nothing quite like a nice little stroll through the English countryside. But he can't enjoy it, because he can't stop running.

"You mentioned it before, that you've only got one heart now, one life," replies Rose, and the Doctor envies how freely her words come and go, how obvious it is that she isn't laboring for breath even in the slightest. "Shouldn't you take it a little easy, at least try to take care of yourself?"

"I'm doing just fine, ta. But it's nice that you're pretending to care."

Rose shoots him a sharp glance; in his periphery, the Doctor sees her ponytail whipping with the force of her motion. "So you _are_ angry with me," she says.

"I'm not," he lies.

"You are though. You're angry about what happened back in Norway."

His heart races and his steps lengthen, like his body is trying to escape this conversation. "I thought you were forcing me to do physical therapy right now."

"This doesn't count. And besides, we can run and talk at the same time."

The Doctor is starting to doubt that's the case, given how much his body is protesting against every movement he makes, his lungs burning and limbs groaning and muscles seizing up in discomfort, but he pushes anyway, jogging faster, pumping harder, because if his body didn't want this, then his body shouldn't have lapsed into a coma. This is what his body gets for allowing itself to get so weak, this is what it gets for letting him down.

"You're angry I didn't stay," says Rose, keeping pace with him easily.

"I'm sure you had your reasons," the Doctor pants.

"Yeah, I did."

"And now that your business here is concluded, you'll go back."

"Is that what you want me to do?"

"Since when does it matter what I want?" the Doctor bites back, breaking into a run.

The _slap-slap-slap_ of Rose's trainers against the asphalt lets him know she's catching up. "Please," Rose says, and she's still breathing far too easily, far too freely, _damn her_, so the Doctor runs faster. "We have to talk about this!"

Except they don't have to, the Doctor thinks as he sprints away, gasping for air; she doesn't have to tell him what really happened at Bad Wolf Bay, she doesn't have to tell him what stupid horrid thing he said, she doesn't have to tell him all the reasons why she left, she doesn't have to tell him about her time in the other universe and her adventures in the TARDIS and her life spent with his other self, the two of them drawing an arc through all of time and space, together. She doesn't have to say it and he doesn't have to hear it, he doesn't have to watch her stupid wonderful beautiful terrible face while the words drip from her lips about all the wretched things that make him unworthy; he doesn't need to know why she chose the other him. He doesn't need to know how happy they are together, and he doesn't need a reminder of how horrendously selfish he is for hating them for it. He doesn't have to remember the dreams his mind cooked up to stave off the crippling loneliness, he doesn't have to remember how much he misses her and how much he loves her and how desperately he wants her to stay and he doesn't have to think about how easy it would be to beg and plead with her not to step back into the other universe, not to rip out his one remaining pathetic heart to keep for herself as some kind of morbid bleeding trophy. _He doesn't have to._

He runs faster.

"Doctor, wait," says Rose, breaking into a sprint to keep up with him. "You shouldn't push yourself like this, you're gonna-"

Blinding pain stabs him in the ribs, gutting him from the side until he stumbles from it. Every gasp for air is a white-hot stabbing knife in his lungs and he falls to the ground, wheezing, knees smacking the pavement with a _thwack._ Stars swimming in his vision, he doubles over, clutching his side as pain blossoms through his knees and his ribs.

"Doctor!" erupts Rose's voice behind him, and a matter of milliseconds, she's crouching by his side, her hand grasping his shoulder. "Doctor, are you-"

"Stop," the Doctor chokes out, eyes clenched shut.

Rose squeezes his shoulder, her grip bordering on the painful. "What?"

"Just stop, please," the Doctor wheezes, pushing her hand away. "I don't need your help."

"Oh my god, please stop being stupid. Your health is more important than your pride!"

"I don't need your help and I don't need you!"

His voice sounds unnaturally loud in the quiet clearing. Still wheezing, the Doctor opens his eyes to find Rose staring at him, hurt evident in the tension of her clenched jaw. "I already knew that, thanks," she says, her voice curt.

Probably he should apologize (definitely, he should), but instead the Doctor slouches onto the pavement, legs sprawling inelegantly before him. "Why did you come back?" he asks between laboured breaths.

They stare at each other. Rose quirks an eyebrow in confusion. "I already told you, I-"

"No," snaps the Doctor. "_Why_?"

Stubbornness flashes in Rose's eyes, and it's the most _Rose _she's been since she returned. "I was worried about you. I wanted to make sure you were all right."

"And why you are still here?"

"Do you want me to go?"

"_Why are you still here?_"

"Because I missed you, all right?" Rose blurts out, and-and wait, are those tears welling up in her eyes now? "God, I just missed you! Is that really such a shock?"

Somewhere in its mad drumming the Doctor's heart skips a few beats. But his gaze narrows in suspicion. "Why? You've got the other me. You've got the better me, arguably. What's there to miss?"

Wordlessly, Rose thumbs the would-be tears from her eyes, refusing to look at him.

"What, did he regenerate again?" the Doctor presses. "He did, didn't he? And you don't like this new Doctor either, but at least you've got a convenient backup copy the next universe over?"

"It's not that," Rose snaps. "It's-forget it. You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

Her mouth twists unhappily as she stares at the ground. "He hasn't regenerated. He's still the same, still like you. But he's…"

The Doctor watches her as she sorts through her words. Concern for his other self flares up briefly; he immediately douses the flame. He's still too angry for that nonsense.

Rose pushes her hands over her hair, mussing the strands that have slipped free from her ponytail. "It's just not how I imagined it, reuniting with you. Or him, I mean. I mean-I knew things wouldn't be exactly as I'd pictured them, I knew I wouldn't be able to account for everything. And I knew we both would have changed over the years, you with your different companions, me working to get back. But, I dunno. I guess I thought I'd find you, and things would go back to the way they were before, more or less. Even if you didn't feel exactly the same way about me, that I felt about you, it would be fine. Which isn't to say-" she stammers, her cheeks growing pink, "-I mean, of course if you did feel exactly the same way about me, that I felt about you, that would be brilliant, but I know you don't think about that sort of thing like humans do, so..."

Pulse quickening in his ears, the Doctor thinks about opening his mouth to interject an argument, but pride steals his words and his lips stay sealed.

"It's just different, now," Rose says, worrying her lip between her teeth. "It's like he can't let go of whatever it is that's keeping him from being happy. Like the walls are back in place, worse than they were before, even. And nothing's getting through. He won't let anyone or anything in."

The Doctor shifts uncomfortably on the ground. He tells himself it's just because of the asphalt digging into his bum. "I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation," he says. "The whole business with Donna couldn't have helped things."

"Not for lack of trying, though."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, she tried to help, and he just dumped her back off on Earth."

His gaze snaps up to hers in alarm. "He didn't take her memory away?"

"No. Talked about it, when Donna started to glitch. But she begged him not to do it, and when he wouldn't listen, she begged me, so-so I convinced him to try putting her under, slowing her brain functions just long enough that he had the time to go in with a more surgical approach, just taking out the stuff that was hurting her instead of throwing out the baby with the bathwater." Rose pauses, remembering. "It was pretty touch and go there, for a bit. They were in the medbay for days, him taking out the memories that didn't belong. Felt like weeks."

"And-and he was successful?" the Doctor asks.

Rose nods. "Yeah, it worked like magic. Few days later, Donna was back to her old self, no more Doctor in her brain, just her."

"Oh, but that's fantastic!" says the Doctor, hope and happiness inflating like a balloon in his chest. "But why'd he take her back home, then? Did she ask him to?"

"Of course not," Rose scoffs.

"Then, what happened?"

Once again, she can't look at him. "Donna said she was fine, but he never really believed her. Kept growing more and more distant with her, and with me. Still, he kept Donna around until that whole business with...with Wilf."

"Donna's grandfather?"

Rose nods, sniffling, and the Doctor can tell she's fighting off tears again. "End of the world again, he came along for the ride. And there were these radiation chambers, venting off toxic stuff, and Wilf was in one, and the chambers were flooded, and-"

She swallows. "It was down to Wilf, or someone else. And I couldn't let him die, Doctor, I just couldn't. So I ran over to the door, to let him out, and I would take his place."

"Rose," says the Doctor, aghast.

"But at the last second, the Doctor stopped me, pulled me away, and I thought for a second he might do it instead, his hand was on the door handle and everything, but then he looked at me, like he couldn't...and then Wilf was gone."

The balloon is punctured and hope fizzles out, leaving a sick feeling sinking in the Doctor's stomach instead. "I'm sorry," he says quietly, even though he knows, with absolute certainty, that he would have done exactly the same thing.

"The horrible thing is, Donna wasn't even upset. Or, she was, but it was like-like, she was so proud of her grandpa, right? Cos he was a hero, and he died like one. So she was sad, and she missed him, and she was angry he was gone, but she still wanted to stay. Still didn't want to go home." Rose's face hardens. "But next thing we knew, we were landing back on earth, and the Doctor left Donna back at her mum's, crying and shouting on her doorstep."

Now the Doctor feels sick for an entirely different reason. The image of Donna, red-faced and pleading with him to stay, even after everything, is almost enough to make him ill.

"It was because of me," says Rose, shaking. "Because I was there."

"No, Rose," says the Doctor. "You can't-"

"Don't," Rose says sharply. "You _know _it's true. He didn't step in for Wilf because I was there. It was something to do with me. If I hadn't been there, he would have saved Wilf. He would have regenerated, and Wilf would be safe, and Donna would still be with him on the TARDIS, and the Doctor wouldn't look at me like he can't stand me anymore, like he's going to be sick at the sight of me. Like he _hates _me."

"It's not that," says the Doctor (even as he curses himself, because why the fuck is he defending his other self, again? Whose side is he on, here?). "It's not because of you, it's because-"

"He feels guilty."

Surprised, the Doctor stops, swallows his words. He nods.

"Yeah," Rose says, her voice flat. "Because of Wilf, and Donna." She draws in a shaky breath. "Because of me."

Slowly, hating himself, the Doctor nods again.

Rose issues a grim smile. "See, Donna and Wilf and me, we all know that bad things happen. And you feel bad about them, yeah, but you can't let that get you down. Not forever. And if something bad happens to the people you care about, that hurts, too, but you help them, however you can. But with the Doctor-with you-it's like, bad things happen to the people you care about, and instead of trying to help them, you blame yourself, and you shut down. You build these walls out of guilt and you hide behind them and you say you do it all to keep others safe, so you can't hurt them anymore, but really, you're just trying to protect yourself. And you're hurting the people who love you, in the process."

(_"I came all that way, to find you," _he hears, from a beach and a forever away, and he shakes himself.)

"Can you really blame him, though?" asks the Doctor. "Withdrawing a little bit, after all that?"

"Can you honestly tell me this wouldn't have happened either way?" Rose retorts. "It was always going to be something. If it wasn't Donna and Wilf, he would have found something else. He would have buried himself in guilt cos he let me go with him, let me leave my mum and my family and everyone here. S'like, he knows how it feels to lose your family, and he remembers how much it hurts, and he thinks I must miss them, and it must be his fault." She sighs. "I think he even feels guilty about leaving you here, despite everything he said."

(_"A bit too human,"_ he hears, in a voice that sounds exactly like his. _"He needs someone to look after him, Rose."_)

Rose blinks away another unshed tear. "It's not really fair to leave me to figure all this out on my own. It's a lot to ask of a person."

"I can't imagine he asked, though."

"True. But what else am I supposed to do when you won't talk to me?"

The Doctor doesn't have an answer for that one. He tells himself it's just because he's still a little bit busy with the wheezing, though truth be told, his breathing recovered some time ago.

"You know what the worst part is?" Rose asks, her lower lip trembling. "He's right. I do miss my family." She buries her face in her hands. "Being away from Mum and Tony-it's so much harder than I thought it would be. _I've missed them so much._"

"So you came back for them," the Doctor says flatly.

"Oh my god," Rose groans, hands dragging over her face. "I came back for _all _of you!"

"But mostly for them."

"Jesus, you're insufferable. What do you want me to say? That you're the only person I love, that you're the only person I care about in two whole universes?"

"So that's it?" asks the Doctor, pushing aside his concern. "You realized I was right all along, that 900 years of very personal, very _painful_ experience might have meant something after all, that losing your friends and family is, in fact, quite horrible, which any reasonable person might have known straightaway but you ignored for some reason, and you suddenly realized you should have stayed here with your family and me, like he planned, like we _both_ planned, and you just up and came back because _this new Doctor isn't exactly the real deal, but he's close enough, and my family's there, besides_? Is that it? Is that why you're still here?"

"I came back because you asked me to!" shouts Rose.

"I asked you to stay with me before, back in bloody Norway, and it didn't make a damn bit of difference!"

"No you didn't," Rose retorts, scraping tears off her cheeks. Pushing herself to her feet, she shakes her head, angry. "You didn't _ask_ me anything. You _told _me. You told me that you only had one heart, but otherwise you were the same, and you wanted to be with me."

Flabbergasted, the Doctor stares up at her, hands spread helplessly. "What on earth is wrong with that? Isn't that what you wanted?"

"I wanted the truth. I wanted you to let me in. But you just pushed me away, same as always."

The Doctor frantically scans his memory, his mind racing to see if anything catches and clicks. But the film reels just spins and spins, flashing broken images on a patchy screen.

But wait-

He freezes. With a sensation like ice flooding his veins, he remembers.

(_The slap of the waves, the whistle of the wind. Salt in the air, biting his cheeks and stinging his eyes._

_A laugh, fond. Donna. "They're not listening."_

"_No, they're not, are they," mutters his other self. He looks...weary._

_Then, a question. Rose wants to know how it ends._

"_What sentence?" he asks, as if he doesn't know. Biding for time. Smiling. But uneasy._

_She tells him, careful hope etched in the line of her brow._

_Nervousness roils in his mind, loud and tempestuous like the ocean beside them. The wind tugs at his clothes and whips Rose's hair about her face and the sea crashes and the salt stings and his heart races and it's too much. He can't tell her. He can't. Not now. Not now. Not yet. _

_(What if he tells her and something happens to her, what if tells her and she leaves anyway?)_

_Not yet. Maybe later._

_When he's ready._)

Shivering, the Doctor closes his eyes. "Isn't it cold," he murmurs.

"I just needed to know," says Rose plaintively, her mouth twisting in the effort to hold back tears, to keep the dam from bursting any further. "It doesn't matter if you don't feel for me exactly the same way I do for you. I still told you how I felt. And I just needed to know that I wasn't imagining things, that you felt some tiny shred of something for me, that I didn't work myself to the bone for _four fucking years_, for _nothing_, just to find out you didn't want me."

_Of course I do_, he almost says. "You left me because of one single misspoken phrase?" he asks instead.

"I left you because I had thirty seconds to make a decision before the walls between universes closed back up. And when it came down to the unknown, versus the life I'd worked half a decade to get back to...yeah," says Rose, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I made a decision with the information I had. What else was I supposed to do?"

The Doctor doesn't reply. He knows what he wants to say, what he wants to be true. He also knows-as much as he hates to admit it, as much as it _hurts-_that she's got a fair point. She gave him the opportunity to convince her, handed it over on a gold platter with a heaping helping of vulnerability and hope, and he practically smacked it out of her hands, choosing to hide in comfort and cowardice. Like always.

(_"You really are the same," she says, and it should be a good thing, so why does she look disappointed?_)

"When the other Doctor said you were calling out for me, strong enough to be heard across the Void, I couldn't stay away," Rose says, her voice thick. "I had to help you however I could. He said you needed me. I thought-"

She laughs bitterly, choking back a sob. "I thought this meant maybe, _finally,_ you were gonna let me in."

The Doctor opens his mouth, to speak, to apologize or plead or shout or argue or say anything he wants to say or she needs to hear, but his tongue is heavy and stupid and slow, and nothing emerges.

"I want to," he admits after a moment, so quietly he wouldn't be surprised if she didn't hear it.

Something in Rose's shoulders seems to relax at that, muscles loosening by nano-increments. Sniffling back the last of her tears, she pushes her loose hair behind her ears, wrapping her arms securely round her middle. Like she's protecting herself.

"Are you okay?" she asks, her voice stiff. "To walk back home, I mean."

"Yes," the Doctor lies hoarsely, even as pain twinges in his side.

Rose shoots him a suspicious glance from red-rimmed eyes.

"In a moment," the Doctor confesses.

Nodding, Rose plonks back down on the ground next to him-not as close as she might have, before, but not so far that he couldn't loop an arm around her if he wanted, give her a tight and cozy one-armed hug. But he doesn't know if she wants that, yet. And he's still just so _tired_.

Still, she didn't just leave him here. That seems hopeful.

Silently, they wait.

* * *

Probably she can feel him watching her from the bedroom doorway. He didn't mean to stop here, just paused while limping his way back from the kitchen to his own room (never mind that he only paused because he was distracted by a flash of gold as she combed out her shower-damp hair, and he suddenly remembered a silly water-fight that never was, and grief struck him like a blow to the solar plexus). But Rose doesn't turn, doesn't react.

(Some part of him screams that this is all dreadfully unfair, that he should have been given a _proper_ chance from the beginning, whatever that might have looked like. But it isn't as if she got any sort of proper or fair chance, either.

Another thing they've got in common. He'll take it.)

"I didn't do it consciously, you know," says the Doctor. "Calling out for you, I mean."

Rose turns to look at him, her expression cool and inscrutable as the Doctor leans against the doorjamb. He'd love to pass it off as a casual lean (maybe even a seductive one, under other circumstances); realistically, he's certain he looks every bit as wan and worn as he feels, slumping against the wall for much-needed support. And isn't that just _wizard._

"I don't actually remember doing it at all," the Doctor admits, scratching the back of his neck. "I can only guess it was a telepathic broadcast boosted by the Morpheus toxin, a residual instinct of some sort, borne out of subconscious need and fear. Even if my consciousness was fooled by the toxin-induced dreams, my subconscious knew what was happening, that I was in danger, and it was trying, desperately, to call for help. But I'd like to think it means something that, even in my delusion, the person I reached out to, the person I instinctively wanted to see, was you."

Drawing a deep breath, he stares at a spot on the wall, just past her head-much easier than looking at her right now. "I'm sorry for pulling away over the last few days," he says, willing the words not to stick in his throat. He's too busy swallowing his pride for anything else to take up room in there. "I was hurt, and I was upset, and I was afraid…"

Fuck, he doesn't want her to know this. "I was afraid you'd leave at any moment, because you felt I wasn't good enough, anymore. And I told myself it would be easier if I didn't let myself feel anything about it all. About you."

A few moments pass in tense silence. When the quiet becomes unbearable, the Doctor chances a look at Rose, to find her eyes shining with tears once again.

He panics. Oh, god. He's really bunged all this up, hasn't he?

"I'm sorry," he blurts out.

"No," says Rose, shaking her head. "I mean-thank you. I mean-god. I'm sorry, too, Doctor. I never meant to make you feel anything less-than."

She draws in a shaking breath. "The truth is, I've regretted it, not bringing you along with me to the other universe. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, you being over here, feeling lonely and alone, it's been going through my head every single day, just eating me up inside ever since-"

Pursing her lips, she bites back a sob. "God, I've just missed you so much. I'm so sorry."

Warmth blossoms through the Doctor from head to toe. Before she's even finished speaking, before he even has a chance to think about it, the Doctor has crossed the threshold and folded onto the bed, drawing Rose into his arms for a painfully tight hug. She doesn't return the hug, but burrows into his embrace, her arms trapped between them as she curls into herself, her body wracked with great heaving silent sobs. The Doctor cinches his hold on her even tighter, gathering all the strength he can muster to keep her snug in his grasp. Soon his shirt-collar is damp from her tears, and maybe his, too, if he thinks about it too much. Heedless of the wet and the cold, he presses his face against her hair, just breathing her in.

"Yeah," he says quietly, with a sigh. "Me, too."

* * *

This time, when he awakes, it's to find Rose in the bed next to him. That only makes sense, though; it is her bed, after all. They both just happened to fall asleep in it.

(Still, it's very nice not to wake up alone.)

His back is a little stiff (just how long has he been sleeping on his stomach, anyway?) but the Doctor is hesitant to move, preferring instead to peek up from his pillow to watch Rose. She's been awake for a while now, by the looks of it; propped up on her pillows, she types away on a laptop, glasses perched atop her nose, her tongue peeking pinkly between her teeth in concentration. The light from the computer screen bathes her face in a soft white-blue, a gentle contrast to the warm golden afternoon sunlight flooding the room all round them. It's not unlike the morning that they woke up together after-after, _well._ At least this time the memory doesn't hurt, so much as make the Doctor blush furiously.

As if she can sense him watching her (again), Rose glances down at the Doctor, flashing him the briefest smile. "Hello," she says, almost shyly.

"'Lo," he murmurs. "When did you start wearing glasses?"

"Mm, couple months ago. Just for the computer, so the light doesn't strain my eyes."

He considers telling her she needn't wear them, that she could just avoid digital eyestrain by looking away from the computer every so often, but he stops himself; probably the other Doctor has lectured her on it already, anyway. "What are you working on?"

"Loose ends," Rose replies, closing the laptop. "Turns out when you hop universes, you leave a lot of them."

"I can imagine."

"Yeah." Rose worries the inside of her lip. "I really am sorry."

"As you should be," the Doctor says in soft mock-sternness.

Rose rolls her eyes, but she's smiling. "Git."

(He doesn't disagree.)

Slipping off her specs, Rose sets them aside with her laptop, sliding back down into the bed so that she's burrowed comfortably in the duvet, face-to-face with the Doctor. "How are you feeling?" she asks.

"Eh. Tired. A little stiff. But I suppose that's to be expected."

"Yeah, that starts happening when you get old."

He shoots her a dirty look.

"What?" she asks innocently. "You teased me first."

"Yes, but I was referring to the coma. Remember the coma? Also known as The Thing That Almost Killed Me? It was all very serious stuff."

"Very serious," Rose agrees, her mouth twitching.

"I mean it," says the Doctor, pushing off his stomach (with only the tiniest of winces) so he can roll over onto his side, facing her properly. "Also, I'm not old."

"900 years young, then?

"That's not old," the Doctor sniffs. "That's...dignified."

"That what they're calling it, now?"

"Yes. Besides, I'm perfectly spry and youthful compared to plenty of other things in the world-there's loads of things in the universe older than me!"

"Yeah? Like what? The Big Bang?"

"As for example," the Doctor says stubbornly.

Rose grins, her tongue poking cheekily from between her teeth, exactly the way it used to. "Admit it," she says, poking him in the chest. "You're an old cradle-robber."

"I most certainly am not. In fact, if anyone's a cradle-robber here, it's you."

"Me?"

"Yes! This is a fresh new body!" exclaims the Doctor, gesturing to himself. "Barely three months old! Doesn't get much cradle-robbier than that."

At that, Rose quiets. Her hand hasn't left his chest and she picks at his shirt, thinking. His skin is warm everywhere she accidentally brushes against it. "Three months?" she asks.

The Doctor nods. "Give or take about twelve hours, take into account the time differential between the two universes, factoring in the time spent on the Crucible-about three months, four and a half days."

"Okay. Good."

The Doctor piques an eyebrow, questioning.

"It's been a lot longer, for me. I was afraid it had been for you, too."

_Long enough_, the Doctor thinks, but there's no use puncturing the moment with sharp words. (He thinks of other sharp words in other arguments that also didn't happen, and soup scalding in a stove, and a surprise confession that shouldn't have been a surprise at all; he's rather proud of himself, for reigning in the words instead of letting them fly, even if he does miss the opportunity to make it all up with a good hug and a snog, after.)

"But you couldn't have imagined it was that long, over here," says the Doctor, frowning in confusion. "Not when you saw Tony."

Rose bites her lip.

Wide-eyed, the Doctor realizes. "You haven't seen Tony yet?"

"Mum didn't want me to. She was afraid it would be too hard on him when-_if_ I went back."

Behind his ribs, the Doctor's stomach is doing somersaults. "If?" he asks, conversationally, and tries not to choke on the hopefulness of it.

Rose shrugs. "I don't know. I don't want to leave my family again. But I also don't want you to be alone. Either of you."

That's fair, the Doctor supposes, even if he doesn't like it. Funny little side effect of being human, but he's sort of marvelously selfish now, and would like nothing more than to keep Rose all to himself-_this_ self, specifically, sod the other self-or maybe that's just a funny little side effect of being _him, _in any incarnation.

"Oh, I don't know," Rose repeats, scrubbing a hand over her face, the heel of her palm pressing into her eye. "Maybe it really would be better if I stayed here. I mean, I guess the walls between universes are open again? At least for a little while, after everything that just happened with the Pandorica? I really don't understand it, it's not like any maths I learned while building the Cannon, it's all just a bunch of wibbly nonsense. So maybe it doesn't have to be a forever thing anymore, staying on one side or the other. But I don't want to go back without you, and I don't want to feel like some sort of rotten old burden to him. It's exhausting and it hurts, watching him just stew in his guilt, knowing he won't let me help, worrying that he secretly resents me. But there's just no telling what he really wants, or how he feels."

"He loves you."

Slowly, Rose pulls her hand away from her face. Her lips part in question.

"And…" stammers the Doctor, a flush crawling hotly up the back of his neck, into his cheeks, and _damn this silly human body_, "...so do I."

Rose doesn't reply, too busy staring.

"In a romantic way," he rushes, his cheeks growing hotter by the second. "And-and a platonic way as well, I suppose, because we're friends, too, aren't we? But also more than friends. Best friends. But more than that, as well, because Donna's also my best friend-because you absolutely can have more than one best friend, you know, but three's the cap, any more than that and you're pushing it, it's scientifically verified, all sorts of studies on it in the 4800's, fascinating stuff-but there's absolutely nothing romantic there with Donna, absolutely not, I'd rather regenerate into a barnacle-covered-rock. Is there a word for that in English? Not the rock-thing, I mean for something that means _best friends who also love each other in a romantic and hopefully sexual sense_. Because I can think of several dozen words that would work in other languages, from civilizations from Jupiter and Kanza'an and Neptus Prime, but without the TARDIS' translation circuits, you wouldn't be able to understand them, and that sort of defeats the purpose, doesn't it, of talking-"

The rest of his spoken words are muffled into nonsense as Rose leans forward to press a kiss to his lips. The rest of his unspoken, shored-up-and-waiting-somewhere-in-his-mind words sort of flutter away to be replaced like the room is spinning all around them. There's no spinning, of course, but he's grateful all the same when Rose grabs his shirt-collar and pulls him in closer, tethering him to this plane.

He breaks the kiss with a gasp (_stupid human lungs_) to find Rose smiling at him, the first real, proper smile he's seen from her since she came back, and maybe it's just that bit of leftover Donna-borne sentimentalism still lurking his brain, but good grief, he doesn't know if he's ever seen anything quite as wonderful in all the multiverse as that smile.

"And you love me, too?" he asks, even though he already knows the answer-because she isn't the only one who needs to hear things, sometimes.

Rolling her eyes, Rose laughs. "Of course I do," she says. "Don't be st-"

He doesn't find out what he's not supposed to be, because he's too busy cupping her by the chin and kissing her.

* * *

"You never said," Rose tells him later, when they're lounging by the telly with a spread of takeaway on the coffee-table-because even if he won't say it, this whole recovery experience is quite tiring, and even if he doesn't say it, Rose still knows.

The Doctor glances up from his carton of fried rice. "Never said what?"

"What you were dreaming about, in the Morpheus coma."

Alarm bells ring faintly in the back of his mind, adrenaline trickling in with a gentle fight-or-flight nudge-_deflect, tell a joke, lie, retreat_-but the Doctor wills himself to calm. It's a fair query. It was bound to come up sooner or later. It is not going to harm him in any way, he tells himself, to answer her.

"Just normal things, really," he replies. "It was all based on stuff that happened here, after you-well, after you left. The only difference was, in the dreams, you didn't leave."

Rose frowns, suddenly uncertain. "You said it was a nightmare."

"Parts of it, very much so," the Doctor says softly. "Realizing that you weren't actually there, and neither was Donna...that was very hard to come to terms with. But the dream wasn't all that bad. A lot of it was actually quite nice. Most of it, even."

He can tell what she's going to ask next, even before she opens her mouth to do so, and he braces himself for the surge of resistance heading his way, for that inevitable revival of self-protective cowardice that's going to throw up his defenses like an impenetrable wall. But even though he can feel those things tugging at the corners of his consciousness, knocking and calling to be let in, he does not feel the urge to open the door for them. Instead, he knows he will answer her. He knows he _wants _to.

"Tell me about it?" Rose asks.

He does.


End file.
